


The Bogeyman and the Big, Bad Wolf

by magnolia_9



Series: Wolf at Your Door [2]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Past Child Abuse, background regan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 22:03:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnolia_9/pseuds/magnolia_9
Summary: Daryl’s past comes back to haunt him when he is taken captive by the Saviors, but as his most painful secrets come to light, he learns something about the man he believed was a monster. Bonus scene/companion toWolf at Your Door.





	The Bogeyman and the Big, Bad Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> The tags are there, but: this one's violent, and it touches on Daryl's canonical abuse at the hands of his father.

When the world broke and began to rot, Daryl measured all the monsters he met up against one man. They were all lacking in one way or another.

Not one of them ever threatened to knock his daddy off his throne.

His daddy was the chief monster, the king monster, the man that the bogeyman knelt down for and the Thing under the bed hid from. Or at least that was the score until he met Negan.

It wasn’t that he was mean, although he was - _meaner’n a two-headed rattlesnake,_ as Merle would say. Mean wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he was _smart_. He fuckin’ knew things. No one ever accused his daddy of having brains, but Negan sure as hell had them. He was smart, and he knew how to be mean in a _smart_ way, a way that made Daryl feel like his mind was blackening and curling in on itself like paper thrown on a campfire.

When he first brought him to the Sanctuary, he had him beaten. That was fine. He had him thrown in a tiny little cramped closet of a cell, and that was nothing more than Daryl expected, so it was fine, too. Then he took away his clothes, and that was smart-mean, because without his clothes everyone could see what he spent almost every minute of his life trying to hide.

His daddy.

He screamed and kicked and fought like a wild dog when they tore them off of him, but there were too many Saviors and only one of him. He tried to turn his back away from all those eyes, especially one pair of eyes, but he was on his belly as his shirt was torn from his shoulders, and it was too late. Negan saw.

He stomped his heavy boot straight into the small of Daryl’s back, slamming him in the floor with a jolt of pain up his spine that made his head go a little fuzzy. He panted against the concrete, pinned, as Negan gave a low whistle above him that brought humiliated tears to his eyes. Two Saviors began to tug at his pants, and he didn’t even care. He didn’t care about that the way he cared about the ugly story written in the flesh of his back.

“Who did this to you, Daryl-boy?” Negan asked curiously above him.

Daryl just continued to pant in quick, short gasps like a frightened animal. He felt more animal than man. He hadn’t had any food or water since early that morning, and he had spent every minute of the ride to his prison in an agony of grief and worry. Maggie’s swollen, sobbing face rose before his eyes again and again, and he thought if the pain of that wouldn’t stop his heart completely, the guilt would. It _should_.

“Do you want me to guess?” Negan went on above him, and Daryl could hear the mocking smirk in his voice. “Let’s see. Who. Could. It. _Be_.” Negan singsonged his words, and Daryl flinched on each one. He hummed theatrically, and Daryl realized he was irrationally afraid that he was actually going to guess the - “Your daddy,” Negan said flatly above him, and the answer was in the panicked spasm Daryl’s entire body gave. “I knew it.” The boot was suddenly off his back, but he couldn’t move.

“How’d you know?” he grunted, spooked. “How in the hell’d you know that?”

Negan snorted. “Daryl, everything about you screams ‘my daddy used to kick the shit out of me.’ I’ll bet he beat you for looking at him sideways. I’ll bet he beat you for breathing too hard. Shit, he just beat you for the hell of it, didn’t he? How old were you when he started?”

Tears were leaking steadily from Daryl’s eyes, to his horror and confusion. _How does he do that?_ he thought wonderingly. _How does he know things?_

“Answer me,” Negan said sharply, and Daryl tensed in anticipation of pain. It didn’t come; not this time.

“Dunno. Can’t remember a time when he didn’t.” Silence stretched out in the wake of that, and in it Daryl could hear the jack-hammer rhythm of his own heart.

Negan crouched beside him, so close Daryl could smell the leather of his jacket. “I’m your daddy now, Daryl,” he said softly, and it was meanest, smartest thing he could have thought to say.

Daryl felt something freezing settle into all of his cracks, and he started to shake. He was afraid. He was more afraid than he could remember being, and not because he was afraid of pain, because he wasn’t. Not anymore. He was afraid of whatever Negan was doing to his mind - the way he seemed to be reaching his hand straight in and jumbling everything around.

“And you know what? You should be goddamn _grateful_. Because I’m not like the shit-stain that fucked you up when you were a helpless kid, Daryl. I may be a strict daddy - I’m not gonna fucking pretend I’m not. But I’m fucking fair. All you have to do is be a good boy and do what I tell you to, and I’ll take care of you. I’ll take you right out of this cell and set you up with a sweet-ass room, three squares a day, and a working shower. Which is something you fucking need, by the way, because you smell like a horse’s ass in July, Daryl. All that, just for doing what you’re fucking told. Is that so hard? No more pain. No more crying your little eyes out into a dirty prison floor.”

Daryl jerked a little at that and tried to turn his face further into the cement. Could he see that he was crying, or did he just _know_ , the way he knew everything else? He found his voice. “I ain’t never gonna turn on my family,” he said, and he didn’t care if it came out a little choked and wet-sounding. It didn’t make what he said any less important. “Not for nothin’. Not for _nothin’_.”

Negan shifted beside him with a scoff. “That’s your fucking problem, Daryl. Yours and Rick’s. You gotta get your head right on this thing. You’re not fucking turnin’ on anybody, because we’re all one big happy family now. Daddy Negan’s family. Get it?”

Daryl maintained a sullen silence, but he couldn’t suppress the shivering of his naked body against the cold floor.

“You will,” Negan said casually. “You fucking will, Daryl. You all will. You just need a little time.”

—

The next time he saw Negan, he thought he was dreaming. It had been an endless parade of Dwight for days. Dwight asking him who he was, Dwight punching and kicking him when he defiantly spat _I’m Daryl,_ Dwight feeding him dog food sandwiches, Dwight playing that song over and over and over again until he wanted to rip into his own skull and tear the song right out. _Dwight Dwight Dwight._ Daryl thought the only thing that got him through those days was the fantasy of how he could kill the man. He imagined it every which way - gutting him, stabbing him in the heart, the kidneys, the eye, the throat, shooting him until the clip was empty and then beating him with the butt of his gun. He hated him more than Negan these days. He had almost forgotten about Negan with the way his mind was splintering under _Dwight Dwight Dwight,_ so when he woke up one morning to find the man standing above him and frowning at him, he thought he was hallucinating.

He was _sure_ he was hallucinating when Negan said: “Did your piece of shit brother Merle ever even try to save you from the beatings your piece of shit father was laying down on you?”

It was okay to tell the truth to a hallucination, he figured. “He tried. When he was around. But he lit out when was fourteen or so.”

“How old were you when he was fourteen?”

Daryl wet his cracked lips. “Seven.”

Negan glared down at him for a full minute, before he let out a stream of curses so fast and vicious that Daryl hardly caught them.

_Dick-licking-cunt-motherfucking-shitting-fucking-shitfucking-goddamned-son-of-a-fucking-whore._

It was something like that, plus one or two words that were either garbled or curses so rarified that only a connoisseur like Negan would know them. He stomped out and slammed the door behind him, and when the force of the vibrations knocked over the little plastic cup of water next to him, spilling its precious contents on the floor, Daryl knew he wasn’t hallucinating. He would never imagine something so cruel. He pressed his hand into the damp spot, lifting it to his mouth and licking desperately at the moisture.

He was doing that when a harried-looking Dwight swept in, and the man gave him a disgusted look that made him want to scream. _You’d lick water off the floor if you were dyin’ of thirst and eating salty-ass dog food, too, you rat-faced sonofabitch._

Dwight flung a bundle in his face, and Daryl was too weak to react quickly enough to stop the fabric from striking him and bouncing into his lap. He pawed it, lifting the sweatshirt up, face crinkling in confusion.

“Get up,” Dwight spat. “You’re getting a shower.”

It wasn’t all he got. He got food and water. He got to put on the clothes Dwight had all but slam-dunked in his face. And when Dwight led him back, it wasn’t to his old cell. It was to a bare room with a single metal bed frame topped by a mattress with a thin sheet stretched over it. In the corner was a few bottles of water and a handful of granola bars.

Daryl wheeled around to face Dwight. “Why?” he demanded, bewildered.

Dwight sneered at him, but his eyes were uncertain. “Ask _him_.” He swallowed, balling his hands up into fists. “Who are you?”

“Daryl,” he answered immediately.

Dwight slapped him hard in the face. He seemed to deflate immediately afterwards, shoulders falling forward like he was about to crumple into pieces. “You’re a stupid stubborn shit,” he said, but he sounded a little unsure.

—

The improvement in his housing came with new responsibilities, and Daryl was sent to work the wall. That was fine. It was grueling and dangerous, but his entire life had been grueling and dangerous. He much preferred the work to rotting in a cell all day like he had been before, and at night he was able to lay down on the thin mattress, sip the bottled water, and nibble on the dry granola. The first day, he rationed the food and drink carefully, but he was shocked to find it all replenished when he returned to his room that night. Eating an entire granola bar was downright luxurious after the hungry days he had endured, and he practically swallowed them all without chewing when he realized that he would get more.

Dwight still plagued him, but not like before. He still asked three or four times a day who he was, and he slapped him when he gave his answer - _I’m Daryl._ There were no all-out beatings, and there was no hellish music, and Daryl had no idea what the hell the abrupt reversal in his fortune meant. He couldn’t ask Negan, as Dwight had told him to, because Negan never came to see him. He didn’t even know what the first question he would ask would be - whether it would be _why ain’t you treating me the shitty way you used to_ or _how the fuck do you know who Merle is?_

He went so long without seeing him that when he finally did, he once again thought he was looking at a hallucination. He was just sitting down on his bed and pulling one dirty shoe off when his door swung open to reveal Negan. His jacket hung open, and Daryl could see dark bruises ringing his neck over the low slung neck of his white tee shirt.

 _Someone got a piece of him_ was his first triumphant thought, and then he realized they were love-bites, sucked onto his neck by a doubtless eager mouth. Someone got a piece of him, all right.

He thought about Sherry, with her sleek hair and slim legs under the little dresses she wore in the Sanctuary. All of Negan’s wives wore little dresses, tight and skimming luscious curves like lascivious hands.

He let the shoe drop, staring at the man filling his doorway. “The hell you doin’ here?” he asked blankly.

Negan smiled, dimples forming on his stubbled cheeks. “You know, you got all the manners of a billy goat, Daryl.”

Daryl sat back a little at that. “Guess so,” he had to agree. “Surprised to see you.”

“Why? I live here.”

Daryl shrugged. “You ain’t been around.”

“You’re right about that, D,” Negan said breezily, strolling in and shutting the door behind him. “I ain’t been around. Been gettin’ cozy in a few other places. What can I say?” He settled against the door, crossing his arms. “When did you first meet Rick?”

“Right after it all started, just before Atlanta was bombed.” He answered without thinking, and his eyes narrowed when he remembered who he was talking to. “Why you wanna know about Rick?” Daryl spat. “The hell you doin’ to him?”

Negan chuckled. “Shit. What am I not doing to him? I just wanna know a little more about the guy I’m sticking it in, Daryl, is that so wrong? So dish, girlfriend.” Negan grinned at Daryl’s expression of gape-mouthed shock. “That’s right, your boy Ricky’s on my dicky. Surprised? You shouldn’t - “

Daryl stumbled over his feet when he surged up, wild-eyed, and that was enough to give Negan the advantage. He stepped neatly aside and crunched his fist into Daryl’s face as the man flew at him with a roar of pure rage, knocking him flat on his back and slamming a boot down onto his chest to keep him there. Daryl’s head hit the floor with an ugly _thunk_ , and he lay there for a moment stunned, blood pouring from his nose, filling his mouth, and dripping down his cheeks and chin.

“Excuse me,” Negan said, his voice flat and cold, “just excuse the full fuck out of me, because I’m not really clear on what’s happening in your tiny brain right now. Did you just try and rush me, shit-for-brains? Have you finally lost it, Jethro? What the fuck are you trying to accomplish here? Do you feel like you haven’t pissed me off enough for a goddamned _lifetime?_ Are you trying to meet a daily quota? Please, fucking enlighten me. I’ll wait.”

The haze in Daryl’s head cleared, and he began to thrash like a fish beneath Negan’s boot. He was dimly aware of a few Saviors filing in behind Negan, guns drawn. He didn’t care. “You fuckin’ monster!” he howled, spraying blood into the air with the force of his cry. “You’re a fuckin’ monster! You fuckin’ -“ He grabbed at Negan’s ankle, tearing mindlessly at his jeans with his nails as if he could claw straight to the flesh beneath.

“Jesus Jennifer Christ, I think he’s rabid,” Negan said above him, sounding almost bored. “We need to shoot him in the ass with a fucking tranquilizer dart. We got those? I think that’s the only thing that’s gonna do it.”

Daryl began to cry in harsh, wrenching sobs, uncaring of all the eyes on him. “What’d you fuckin’ do to him?!” The blood in his mouth made him slur around the words. “You fuckin’ monster!”

Negan stiffened above him, his entire face going blank except for his eyes. His eyes fixed on Daryl with laser-like intensity: the eyes of a wolf about to rip into live, squirming dinner.

“You keep calling me that. Why am I a monster, Daryl?” he said, eerily calm in the face of the man’s frenzied thrashing and crying. “What exactly did I do to your boy Rick?”

“Just fuckin’ told me!” he roared through his tears, crazed with horror and grief. “You fuckin’ raped him!”

Negan closed his eyes and tilted his head back as if he were entreating some heavenly being. “You stupid, stupid shit,” he said, his tone unreadable, “you stupid fucking piece of stupid _shit_. Saviors don’t rape. That shit doesn’t happen under my fucking watch. I’m sure you’ve fucking heard that by now. How many times did your old man kick you in the fucking head? Is that the fucking explanation for you being a _stupid shit_? Of course I didn’t fucking rape him,” he hissed, and as he said it, he ignited. “ _Me?_ You’re fucking - do you know what happens to raping pieces of shit under my watch, you goddamn fucking shit-kicking mud-farming goat-fucking stupid piece of redneck _shit_? How fucking _dare_ you say that shit to me?” he screamed, bending forward, and the Saviors behind him drew back nervously. “I should beat your stupid face into a goddamn stain on this fucking _floor_ for saying that shit to me! How fucking _dare_ you?” His face was scarlet, twisted into a mask of pure fury, and he had never reminded Daryl more of his father than he did now. Negan drew his leg back and kicked Daryl viciously in the side, and he twisted in agony, the breath leaving him in a horrible wheeze.

He tried to get some air back, and as he did he sucked in a lungful of blood. He began to hack and cough and gag, tears streaming helplessly from his eyes, and he was more terrified than he could ever remember being since Daddy Dixon finally went down for his dirt nap.

“Get Carson,” he heard Negan snarl above him, and he wanted to say _no don’t leave me alone with him. Please, don’t leave me alone with him._ He couldn’t say anything, though, because he was choking on his own blood, and he felt like he would die before he ever got the chance to say anything else.

He didn’t die, though. He just coughed and coughed until he turned his head and vomited a great mouthful of blood and bile onto the dusty floor and lay there, breathing the pained, rattling breaths of a wounded animal. He heard the soft rustle of leather as Negan crouched over him and his entire body seized up with fear. Suddenly, he was a tiny boy again, huddled on the kitchen floor as a monster huffed and puffed above him.

“Daddy, don’t!” he shrieked. It flew from him on sheer instinct, his final and greatest humiliation, to lay stinking out in the open. Just like the part of his insides that had just come spewing up and out of his mouth. He froze, squeezing his eyes shut in one last, futile effort to reject what was happening.

“Oh, shit,” he heard Negan whisper behind him, voice muffled as if he were speaking into his hands.

A hand landed on his arm, and he cringed in anticipation of a blow.

“Come on, Daryl,” Negan muttered, “get away from that.” Negan tugged him back, pulling him away from the sticky, red-streaked mess he had made and then turning him onto his side. “Just fucking breathe. You’re fine. Shit went down the wrong pipe, that’s all. Calm down.”

Another hand landed on his shoulder, and his breathing sped up, panicked.

“I said calm the fuck down,” he said quietly. “I’m -“ he broke off, huffing a laugh behind him. “Get ready for this one. I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry. Shit. This is a giant fucking misunderstanding.” He bent closer, and Daryl could feel his breath on the side of his sweating face. “Rick said yes, Daryl. That’s the fucking truth. I would _never_ fucking _ever_ do what you think I did. I wouldn’t. Just the fucking thought made me-“ he broke off with another breathy, almost silent laugh. “I like your boy Rick, Daryl. I like him a lot. I might even love him. How about that shit? God, he’d fucking _gut_ me if he knew what I just did to you. I think I broke your fucking ribs.”

Daryl had gone stiff with shock, but he found his voice suddenly. “You’re fuckin’ crazy,” he said incredulously, voice still a pained, sandpapery wheeze. “You _love_ him? You killed Abe! You killed Glenn, dickhead!”

Negan was silent for a beat. “Which one was which, again?” he asked off-handedly. “I always get confused. Was Glenn the redhead?”

“That was Abe,” Daryl spat, sadness flooding him. “Glenn was the other one. Maggie’s...” he trailed off, feeling his throat tighten on the words.

There was a morose silence after that, and Daryl closed his eyes again. He tried to pretend that the comforting touch on his shoulder and arm belonged to Rick. _He says he loves him,_ he thought wonderingly, _holy Christ._

“I’m not as bad as you all think I am, you know,” Negan said softly behind him. “I’m not the worst fucking thing that’s out there, anyway. That’s all I want from you fucking people - I want for you to fucking get that. That I’m not the worst there is. There’s worse. There’s always worse. All you need to do is fucking work with me. You get that, don’t you, Daryl? Work with me. It’s what’s best for everyone. Best for Rick. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want them all to be safe again? Don’t _you_ want to be safe again?”

Somehow, Daryl preferred the screaming and raging. “Ain’t never gonna turn on my family,” he said, but for the first time, he heard the uncertainty in his voice. “It ain’t best. You ain’t best.”

Negan heard it, too. “Didn’t say I was the best,” he said, and how did he even get his voice to sound that gentle and coaxing? It was wrong for him to be able to do that - to burn everything to the ground around him with his fury and then to turn around and drip sweet honey from his lips. “Didn’t say that, Daryl. Said I wasn’t the worst. You’ll get it. Sure you will. All of you will. You and Rick, you just need a little time.”

Daryl swallowed, and it felt like knives on his abused throat. “Don’t hurt ‘im,” he croaked. He wasn’t embarrassed to beg him - not for Rick’s sake. Besides, Negan had finally succeeded in turning him utterly inside-out, even though he hadn’t even been trying this time. He could still hear his own voice ringing in his ears - _Daddy, don’t!_ He had done a lot of begging in his life, and it seemed he wasn’t done yet. “Please don’t hurt ‘im.”

“I won’t,” Negan said tightly, but now it was his turn to sound uncertain.

—

His ribs weren’t broken. They were just bruised. The doctor patched him up, gave him a fistful of pills, and put him on a week of bed rest. Then Negan went back to ignoring him until the day that the unthinkable happened.

Carl showed up.

Negan had Daryl trailing after them as he dragged the boy around the Sanctuary like a tour guide, as if Carl hadn’t shown up to blow him away.

 _Why is he showing him everything?_ Daryl wondered to himself. He had to know that Carl was filing all that information away to use against him if he could. He felt a swell of pride at the thought. _Lil’ asskicker,_ he thought affectionately. He remembered Judith with a sudden pang, and he wondered how she was doing. He wondered how they were all doing, and he wanted to ask so badly that his gut ached. He didn't want Negan to get pissed at Carl, though, so he kept his mouth shut tight. _  
_

When they got to Negan’s room, Negan stopped Daryl from following them in with a sharp shove to the center of his chest.

He waited a moment until Carl had disappeared behind them. “What’d you think, Daryl?” he asked, voice low, the words only for him. “Would I make a kick-ass step daddy or what?”

Daryl felt his mouth hang open stupidly, and Negan laughed at his expression before shutting the door sharply in his face. “You’re crazy,” he whispered incredulously, face inches from the heavy wood. “You’re crazier’n a shithouse rat.”

“What’d you say?” Dwight demanded, suddenly nearly on top of him. “What’d you just fuckin’ say?” He jabbed Daryl in the side with a gun, and he grunted, nearly dropping his heavy tray.

He didn’t answer. He just turned and walked with slow, dragging steps away from the door that the damn lunatic with the barbed wire bat had disappeared into with something precious: his brother’s son.

—

Something happened in Alexandria when Negan brought Carl back there. Not to Carl, but it had been something. He heard it from the whispers.

Negan was furious about something. He was shutting himself away in his private rooms and drinking. Even his closest couldn’t get at him.

Needless to say, Daryl didn’t see hide nor hair of him.

His instincts told him it had something to with Rick, and he bit his nails down to nubs with worry. He couldn’t be dead or seriously hurt, he reasoned, because there would be whispers about that, too. But still, he worried.

He worried all through his work at the walker wall, and that turned out to be a dangerous time to worry. He was trying to wrangle a walker in place, one a little too spry and fresh to be handled easily, and it slid free from the loop around its neck and whirled on Daryl with the horrible snarl-hiss they all seemed to make in their living death, no matter how they sounded in life. Daryl stumbled back, trying to jam the handle of the collar-loop at the creature, but it was too strong to be put off. _This how it happens?_ he thought, more annoyed than frightened. _That’s some bullshit. It ain’t even cool._ Right on the heels of that, in a rush of pain: _I’ll never see ‘em again. Rick, Carol, Maggie, Carl, the lil’ ass-kicker…_ A shot interrupted his thoughts, and the walker that was about to reach him went down, its rotting head open and oozing black and red.

“Ho-ly _shit_ ,” a familiar voice rang out, and Daryl whirled around in shock. Negan was standing at the fence, waving a handgun, frowning thunderously. “Are you stupid motherfuckers motherfucking stupid? Did you see how close that shit was? Dave, what the _shit_ are you even doing? Don’t fucking stand there with your goddamn mouth open like a fucking idiot - it’s your job to make sure the workers don’t get their fucking faces eaten the fuck off, or did you not fucking know? Good help is hard to find, motherfucker, and if you ain’t good help, I will toss your ass out there for the dead to snack on. Got it, dick-for-brains?”

The man he had been shouting at was folded in on himself like he was trying to actually disappear, face white as paper. “I’m sorry, boss,” he croaked. “I’m sorry. I swear to God, I - I -“

“Oh, my fucking God, won’t you _shut the fuck up_?” Negan leaned forward and started muttering something to the pale-faced man. At one point he gestured at Daryl, and the man’s eyes flicked to him. Negan looked him up and down once after he was done with the private tirade, and then he turned and walked away.

Daryl turned slowly back to the snarling line of walkers. Once in awhile, he glanced over his shoulder to find the guard Negan had shouted at glaring at him. _Not my fault, assface,_ he thought sourly. He wondered what Negan had said to him. He wondered if Negan was ever going to talk to him and give him a chance to ask.

He was just dozing off for the night when his door creaked open. _Negan,_ he thought sleepily. It wasn’t Negan, though. It was someone smaller, someone who shut the door carefully behind them and moved quietly across the floor. Daryl didn’t understand the threat until he heard the clink of a belt buckle working. He tried to shove himself up, but it was too late, and a weight landed on his back like a pile of bricks, knocking the wind out of him and pressing him flat against the mattress.

He yelled and thrashed, and then something hard banged into his skull, stunning him and setting off a loud, horrible ringing between his ears. He was distantly aware of rough hands stripping off his shorts, and wanted to laugh, wanted to scream. _I can’t believe these motherfuckers._

He never did find out why Negan came. Maybe it was to check on him after his close-call with the walker. But the timing was fairy-tale-lucky. A half-second after his shorts were yanked to his thighs, the weight was off his back, and then all _hell_ broke loose.

The screaming. God, the _screaming_. Negan was screaming, and then Dave - Daryl could see his attacker now - was screaming. Dave was screaming because Negan was bringing Lucille down everywhere - his legs, his ribs, his arms, his crotch. _Thud-crack. Thud-crack. Thud-crack._ The room was awash with blood. Daryl was covered in it, and all he could do was sit on his bed and _be_ covered in it while he watched Dave’s final moments. He didn’t even look like a person anymore - he looked like a busted-up mannequin, all twisted and bent in the wrong places and with parts caved in.

Daryl reached down and pulled his shorts back up. There were Saviors crowded in the doorway, and just like Daryl, they were waiting for the finale.

It came when Lucille crunched down one last time, crushing Dave’s blood splattered skull and obliterating the staring, wild-eyed mask of agony his face had become.

Negan spun around and faced him, huffing and puffing like the big, bad wolf. Daryl’s heart seized in terror, but then he saw Negan’s face. The utter despair there left him breathless. He looked _broken_ in that moment. Lost. Like a child close to tears.

 _Why you lookin’ like that?_ he wanted to ask, but he was too scared and confused. The words just stuck in his throat.

“This isn’t it,” Negan muttered under his breath, as if he were talking to himself. “It’s not. Not us. Not me. We’re not monsters. We are _not_ the fucking monsters. I’m fucking saving people. This is…this isn’t - ”

Daryl was inching back, afraid that Negan had finally shot his last marble. He scooted into Dave’s discarded belt without realizing it was there, and he cringed as it clinked faintly, sounding like nails on a chalkboard to his ears.

Negan swung his head up and looked at him, his face morphing from grief to rage to grief again.

Daryl held his breath.

“We are _not_ monsters,” Negan spat finally, and with that, he turned and slammed the door behind him, the Saviors scattering before him like frightened birds.

“You gonna leave me in here with him?” Daryl yelled incredulously after him, finally finding his voice. He wasn’t, as it turned out. A few minutes later, a couple white-faced Saviors walked in and ushered him into another room.

Guess it was easier getting him a new one than cleaning up the goddamn mess in his old one. Daryl figured they’d be scraping Dave off the ceiling for days. That was fine by him. Fucker was gonna _rape_ him.

Looking back, it was probably the decision to put him in a new room that created the opportunity. He was awoken by noise again in the night, but instead of an attacker, it was a savior.

Shoved under his door was a key taped to a scrap of paper.

_Go._

He went.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to start posting the sequel to Wolf at Your Door soon, I super pinky promise!


End file.
